Time and Free Will

Author: Bergson
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-08-01
Features: We must express ourselves in words, and usually we think in terms of space. This means that language requires us to establish clear and precise distinctions between our ideas, just as we do between material objects, creating the same lack of continuity. Converting thought into a form similar to objects is useful in practical life and necessary in most sciences. However, we can ask: By arranging non-spatial phenomena side by side in space, do we not create various unsolvable difficulties for certain philosophical problems? Or we can ask: By debating around clumsy symbols, would the chaos end if these symbols were removed? Converting non-spatial things into spatial ones, and mass into quantity, introduces contradictions at the heart of the issue; since this is the case, contradictions will inevitably reappear in the answers.